Oz music teaching hits the pause button

Angela Giblin writes: Re. “My Cup of Tea: NIDA dramatics ignore play on arts learning” (Friday, item 15). Australia’s tertiary music institutions — that is, the schools which teach performance music — are in a pretty dire state. Very few people who work in these institutions will say so publicly, as their employers, the universities, oppose adverse comment. However, many of the musicians I know, including those who work in our tertiary music education system, are deeply concerned at the state of these institutions in Australia. It’s worth noting that no music school in Australia teaches more than 26 weeks a year. Compare that with the Australian Institute of Sport!

There are two major systemic problems with our conservatories. One is, that the complete integration of our music schools with the universities as part of the Dawkins reforms more than 20 years ago has resulted in a serious mismatch. To wit, a large organisation with a dominant culture of scholarship and research, and with teaching in groups, is partnered with a much smaller organisation whose culture is almost entirely different, in which teaching of instrumental music must be one-on-one, performance is the goal, and scholarship and research are secondary. However the smaller organisation typically has no autonomy.

And why must teaching be one-on-one? Because instrumental teaching is the teaching of fine motor skills, which cannot be done without one-on-one feedback. There is no top-level music school in the world which does not use this model. Despite this fact, a number of vice-chancellors of Australian universities have expressed their support for group teaching in our music schools, even maintaining that it is possible to effectively teach music in this way. It is not.

The second problem is that the HECS system has set the level of Commonwealth funding at that of humanities disciplines, that is, at a teacher-student ratio of about 1:20. Thus one-on-one teaching is grossly underfunded. So it is inevitable that the universities “lose money” on music education, with this HECS model.

The Commonwealth government seems to be entirely uninterested in this issue. So the position of the universities, and of the Commonwealth, is fundamentally determined by funding costs.

Without a public outcry, this situation will continue, and with it the decline of our music education.

What is happening to the ANU School of Music in Canberra is a great tragedy, for music in the national capital, and in Australia generally, as there was a time when the SoM was at the forefront of excellence in Australian music education. There is no prospect of any positive development at this institution for the foreseeable future. And it may be that the School of Music is a test case, and that many other vice-chancellors are keen to implement the ANU’s policies in their music schools.

I have been a musician all my life, have studied and worked in Australia and overseas, and was on the staff on the Canberra (now ANU) School of Music for nine years.

ATO whistleblower

Katherine Stuart writes: Re. “ATO whistleblower in court: ‘they sabotaged my complaints’” (September 20, item 1). Over a long career of dealing with and working in large and small organisations, one thing has become very clear: that rules, systems and policies rarely if ever take into account the way in which human beings often react in the face of a crisis. We shoot the messenger and appoint scapegoats in an attempt to make uncomfortable problems just “go away”’. Unfortunately, that method still works all too well, as can be seen from the original story and comments today. Perhaps our whistleblowing legislation would work better if it included mandatory counselling and support with a qualified clinical psychologist for those directly affected by the whistleblower’s action as well as the whistleblower. The strong emotions, likely to include strong fear, likely to be generated in such a situation have to go somewhere. Surely it is better for those emotions to be dealt with in safe environment. Where there is a way, there might just also be the will to behave more humanely.

Westacott on the public service

Laurie Patton writes: Re. “BCA nostalgic for a bureaucratic past it helped to destroy” (Friday, item 10). Having dealt with numerous ministers from both sides of politics over more than 20 years — at both a federal and state level — I disagree with Jennifer Westacott’s call for a reduction in ministerial advisers. We elect people to parliament and some, in turn, are elevated to the ministry with a mandate to govern on our behalf. In the complex modern world we need ministers to be well advised, with access to more than one policy point of view. That’s why they need advisers. They also need a competent public service, which for the most part I have found to be the case. As Bernard Keane points out, there has been a great deal of public sector reform over recent years. A return to the Yes Minister days is the last thing we need.

John Kotsopoulos writes: “Westacott doesn’t seem to understand policymaking. Plainly she’s unaware, for example, that despite the innumerable Office of Best Practice Regulation hoops public servants have to jump through, it’s ministers on both sides who demand more and more regulation, not public servants,” wrote Bernard Keane.

As someone who has had more than a bit of experience at the policymaking coalface at state level, I can add that it is business that is often at the forefront in demanding additional rules from ministers. That those rules are often aimed at closing down competing interests particularly as they apply to the trades and professions is perhaps one reason why public servants are often slow to respond to such public spirited suggestions.

Gambling on the pokies

Jeremy Bath, media relations manager for Clubs NSW, writes: Re. “Reckon pokies reform doesn’t work? Look to Victoria” (Friday, item 11). Charles Livingstone again has demonstrated his fondness for forgetting key facts in his latest anti-pokies rant. Livingstone cites two Victorian government-commissioned studies that found the percentage of the population playing pokies has fallen. What he forgets to include is that those same studies found the rate of problem gambling in Victorian has fallen from 0.96% of the adult population to 0.7%. I suspect he omitted this fact because it would contradict his disingenuous claim that problem gambling is on the rise in Victoria.

Livingstone also suffers from another moment of “forgetfulness” when he claims that Victoria is a reminder that effective harm minimisation is possible and that effective reforms haven’t taken place in NSW. If Livingstone was in fact a gambling academic then he would know that the rate of problem gambling in NSW has fallen from 0.8% to 0.4% over the past few years, which makes his rant against NSW entirely baseless. All four prevalence studies in NSW and Victoria used an identical measuring index (CPGI) so we can accurately conclude that the NSW problem gambling rate is substantially lower than that in Victoria. If Livingstone is looking for an example of a state to shame, perhaps he should look to the anti-pokies state of Western Australia where the rate of divorce, suicide and cash based crime are all substantially higher than the pro-pokies state of Victoria, NSW or Queensland.

Instead of his regular scaremongering that the sky is falling in because 5 million Australians enjoy playing the pokies each year, Livingstone should be turning up the heat on his mate Senator Nick Xenophon and the Greens, who refuse to support the federal government’s proposed gambling reform legislation. It’s the legislation that Andrew Wilkie supports and successfully lobbied for substantial amendments to. It’s also the legislation that puts into law a trial of mandatory pre-commitment in the ACT. Crikey readers would remember not 12 months ago Livingstone, Xenophon and the Greens all being afforded space in Crikey to advocate for the forced introduction of mandatory pre-commitment in Australia’s registered clubs. Perhaps they fear that by supporting the legislation, they will lessen their ability to make bogus claims of “government inaction” in the media. Just a thought.

The gay marriage issue no one is talking about?

John Taylor writes: Re. “Rundle: marriage equality task easier with likes of Cory around” (Friday, item 5). Thanks Rundle for your comprehensive analysis of the same-s-x marriage argument. I have no problem. If it makes them happy, do it.

But the one thing you didn’t cover and I’ve never actually seen mentioned anywhere is same-s-x divorce. I assume that , once all this is approved, if you are legally married and you wish to change partners you will have to go through the same procedures that currently apply to those who married under the old rules.

Has there been any analysis done as to the increase in workload of the Family Court that may ensue? How many extra judges will be required? Among many questions.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Penny and Sally love each other and nothing will break them apart. But what if …

Just asking.